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Easter Island: Mysterious & Hauntingly Beautiful (25 pics)

In Chile, the Polynesian name for this island is Rapa Nui, but many people call it Easter Island since a Dutch explorer found it on Easter Sunday. Here the horses are nibbling away apparently unimpressed by moai archaeological treasures at the Rano Raraku quarry.Photo #1 by Lieutenant Elizabeth Crapo, NOAA Corps & NOAA

Easter Island Moai with red topknot hats at Anakena Ahu. There are about 250 of these ahu platforms spaced about a half mile apart to create an almost unbroken line around the perimeter of the island. Another 600 moai statues are partial completed and scattered around the island in quarries, beside ancient roads, and in coastal areas. Photo #2 by Lieutenant Elizabeth Crapo, NOAA Corps & NOAA

Most of the moai were carved from volcanic rock. The average statue is about 14 1/2 feet tall and weighs about 14 tons. There were some moai as large as 33 feet tall, weighing more than 80 tons. Another monumental statue was only partially cut from the bedrock, but it was a whopping 65 feet long and was estimated to have weighed about 270 tons. Some sources suggest it might have taken between 50 and 150 people to drag the moai across the island on sleds and rollers made from the island’s trees. Photo #3 by Robin Atherton

Moai found inside the extinct volcano at the quarry Rano Raraku. The moai like this one were cut from the side of the volcano and stood up, but never were moved out of the quarry. They are slowly sinking into the ground. Photo #7 by Louis Vest

A seemingly inquisitive moai tilts his or her head while pondering an observation for centuries on Easter Island. The island was once a paradise, but as many as 10,000 inhabitants used up all the the island’s resources, leaving Easter Island as a cautionary tale and poster child for ecological disaster. Photo #10 by Lieutenant Elizabeth Crapo, NOAA Corps & NOAA

Moai at the Rano Raraku quarry, remnants of a collapsed civilization. To help unravel some of the mystery shrouding Easter Island, a team of archaeologists and a 75-person crew worked for one month with tools and materials available to ancients on Easter Island. In that month, the team struggled and were barely able to raise just one 10-ton moai. The experiment did not explain how hundreds of giant stone statues that dominate the island’s coast were moved and erected. Photo #12 by Lieutenant Elizabeth Crapo, NOAA Corps & NOAA

There are extensive cave systems also on Easter Island, some with the ceilings and walls painted with indigenous cave art. Caves were used by inhabitants to hide during tribal wars and perhaps after those remaining started to starve. This cave is translated as “Man Eat Cave” and “Eat Man Cave” as it is believed the natives turned to cannibalism to survive. After using up all the environmental resources in what was once a lush paradise island, starvation allegedly drove the natives to eat each other. Photo #23 by Koppas

Panorama of Anakena beach, Easter Island. The moai pictured here was the first to be raised back into place upon its ahu in 1955 by islanders using an ancient method. Photo #24 by Rivi